We'd all love to wield dual Titan X graphics cards in our gaming systems, but pesky things like mortgages, college funds for the kids, and food bills tend to prevent us from such willy-nilly spending habits. Luckily manufacturers take these things into account and release more pedestrian level graphics cards, as ASUS has done with its new GeForce GTX 950 part.

No, you're not going to game at 4K Ultra HD with all the eye candy cranked to the max with this thing, but for Full HD 1080p gaming, there's sufficient power here to push pixels around the screen. The card consists of 768 CUDA cores and 2GB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 6,610MHz on a 128-bit memory bus.

There are two different modes you can run the card in. The first is "Gaming Mode," which is the default setting. In Gaming Mode, the GPU sports a base clockspeed of 1,026MHz and boost clockspeed of 1,190MHz. For a little more oomph, the card's "OC Mode" gooses the base and boost clockspeeds to 1,051MHz and 1,228MHz, respectively.

One of the nice things about this card is that it doesn't require an external power source. It consumes up to 75W of power, which it can draw directly from the PCI Express 3.0 bus—there's no need to plug in a power cable from your power supply. Score a point for clean setups.

Compared to the reference design, ASUS claims its version of the GTX 950 runs three times quieter while providing twice as much airflow. That's courtesy of a custom cooling solution consisting of two fans.

ASUS also claims a high level of reliability due to the use of premium "Super Alloy Power II" components. In addition, ASUS says its parts selection results in less component buzzing under load and lower temperatures.

There's no word yet on availability or price, though as a point of reference, ASUS offers a STRIX version of the GTX 950 that streets for $170, or $150 after mail-in-rebate.